


The Sunrise

by ReoPlusOne



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:55:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReoPlusOne/pseuds/ReoPlusOne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>America has finally had enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sunrise

He’d left in the early morning. Matthew had woken up five minutes before his alarm clock to find the bed across the room from his empty, and half of their closet cleared out completely. The blue half of their blue-violet matching luggage set was gone.

So Alfred finally did it, then.

Every stair was creaky and it clawed at his ears as he waited to hear a pair of matching footsteps beside him, just slightly faster and heavier. The younger of the two wasn't sure whether to hurry (because dad would surely be _ruined_ and he needed someone, Matthew knew) or to sneak down into the kitchen (like they used to, for oreos and chips and leftovers, and Dad would always waggle his finger at them and smile). 

Because it wasn't like Matthew had _ever_ been the favorite son, not since Mum died, and by the time they were both seventeen his memories of her had begun to fade, only kept alive by the little pictures of brunette hair and an honest smile that hung above the mantle and in Dad’s room (and the clothes he refused to throw away, and the drapes that had never changed since they’d moved into the house ‘because she picked them,’ he explained one day, ‘she really loved lilies’).

He came to the kitchen to find it empty, the sunlight creeping in through the window above the sink, the stove left on, and one pair of workboots gone from the line by the door to the garage. The front door opened slowly and Matthew waited, heard a little sniffle and a sob that sent a shiver of panic into his heart. 

(‘If your mum was here,’ dad used to say, ‘if your mum was here, you’d understand,’)

Arthur Kirkland walked into the kitchen a broken man, wiping a bloody nose and muttering to himself about the missing child hotline and the police, and he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw a sleepy teen watching him, watching like a wide-eyed baby deer, like when he’d first met them. They had been just toddlers then, and they would never remember that he wasn't related to them by blood (‘but what does it matter,’ Marianne would say, ‘you love them like your very own and you always have’) but that he was some stranger that loved them and their mother with all his heart. And when she’d passed away, sudden as it was, he applied to legally adopt them both, and the boys had never questioned why the lady from CPS had come and said there were no legal guardians that day, why he’d dragged her out to the porch and screamed at her and told her to _give him the papers this instant you bitch_. And she didn't until he gave her a bloody nose much like the one he had now, and he’d signed them right then and there. And the boys were his, all he had left of a broken family that slowly devolved into alcoholism, early death, and finally, an accident that took the only woman he'd ever loved.

Alfred and Matthew never questioned it until recently. Al always knew Arthur’s habits closely, a part of him had never trusted him since that day, always questioned it in his mind. When he asked, Arthur told him the truth. But for all his fleeting suspicions, he’d never expected this.

“Dad,” Matthew started, and Arthur gave him a big smile.

“It’s alright,” A nod, convincing, very much so, “It’s alright, he’ll be back. He just went on a walk today before school, to get some steam out, you know. How about some tea, then?”

Matthew, more than his brother, understood that sometimes, parents needed to feel needed. He sat at the table, and asked for pancakes with his tea.


End file.
